Ash and Runes
by ChaoSpaceMarine
Summary: As Lothric and the Flame faded into the Dark, the Ashen One and the Firekeeper made ready to disappear into nothing... Until the former was transported to a world devoid of both Flame and Dark in an accident. Follow the adventures of your favorite Unkindled One has he struggles not only to adapt to Runeterra, but also against his nature as undead, and his dead heart's wishes...
1. Prologue : Only Dark will remain

**Okay, so this is my first try at this whole "crossover episode" meme going around. Being a big fan of Dark Souls, and pre-retcon-of-most-of-our-lore League of Legends, I thought I'd try to meld the two _after _the ending of the former, because it really ain't DS if there isn't a hope spot of better times for our protagonists that's just _dying_ to be choked to death.**

**So, please, do stay and read. Curtains up!**

**Prologue : Only Dark will remain**

The Kingdom of Lothric finally entered its death throes, just like its Lords beforehand.

The Incarnation of Kings, the unliving manifestation of Gwyn's necessity to protect His realm, along with both the Lords and the First Flame's last representation of power, had fallen, kneeling in the ash before joining itself to it, leaving only its embers and soul. The Twin Princes, as brothers, the Ashen One punished for destroying the last chance the Flame had. He took Lothric's and Lorian's cinders by force, albeit not without hearing the former's condemnation and warning. Just like the rest of the Lords, except for Ludleth; noble Ludleth, ever faithful to the Flame. It made his answer, and acceptance, to the Ashen One's betrayal of the cycle all the more heartwrenching. Champion of Ash, he moved determined, and triumphed over the Lords. But they weren't alone to be crushed.

There was Ariandel, and his despicable wench Friede. Gone was the fool's hope of eternally sustaining the painted world. It rotted away before Ariandel could even realize it, and he left the Unkindled the scars that mercy kills inflicted upon the survivors.

Gael, slaveknight, and an helpfull ally against Aldrich, too became his opponent, at the World's Edge, the Ringed City, home of the Pygmees. His quest for the Dark Soul of Man consumed him, and his death left his mistress with the irony of a painted world without its intended subject.

Hope, just like embers, turned to be naught but ash. It always ended in ash.

Slowly, the unkindled warrior made his way to the bonfire. All around him, the world itself seemed as if it contracted its distances to feel warmth one last time, as the Seal of Fire itself overlooked the ordeal, in the form of the Sun, seemingly to mock everything the First Flame ever built to ward of the Dark.

The Ashen One bogged in the shifting ash and steel that made the ground of the Kiln. _No more,_ he recited in a litany, thinking of the Untended Graves as he pushed against the cinders carried by the wind, _no more Lords, no more Hollows, no more sacrifices, no more gods or dragons, no more men,_ _no more pain,_ _no more... _

_No more Fire. _

The Ashen one was now an arm's length away from the bonfire. He hesitated. None of what he saw of the Dark was reassuring. The Pygmee Lords contained the Dark Soul, true, but they carried the strength of the first Lords. Gael came back to the Champion of Ash's mind, his red cowl turning into murderous magic, and the sky darkening with his mere presence. The Abyss Watchers, forced to slaughter each other, corrupted by the power beyond the Light. Just like their founder.

His thoughts wandered on the eventual fate of the Firekeeper… a process brutally repressed when his mind, on a tangent, associated with her and the Darkness the memory of Wolnir, _somehow. _The refusal to associate those concepts left him immobilized with his right hand suspended above an empty area one time his height away from the bonfire. Beneath his palm was a summon sign.

She, unlike Wolnir, would not stand alone, and she, unlike Wolnir, would not unnaturally prolong her own suffering by killing her companion. The Ashen One shook his head, determined to finally allow his world to rest.

_Come forth, Firekeeper. _

Beneath his right hand, the ground became marked with light, as a form emerged from the markings. Materialized before the Ashen One stood the crowned, ethereal beauty; it was for her eyes and insight that he crossed the Consumed King Oceiros and the Untended Graves, met with Gundyr in battle a second time, and was revealed the depths of Lothric's treachery. From this new information, and after finally confronting the Twin Princes, the Ashen One judged that the Lords' rest mattered more than their honor, if such a thing can be lost in being forced unwillingly to serve as the Incarnation. She simply agreed, as if the demise of Gwyn's work was just another quest, just another step.

Then again, there was the Firekeeper mass grave the Ashen One saw in the Bell Tower. If that was the fate of obedient bonfire tenders, he preferred _his_ agreed to end this pointless cycle.

Her masked eyes seemed to gaze at him for a second, before making her way to the bonfire, slowly. The Undead followed solemnly from behind.

The Firekeeper kneeled near the First Flame, and extended her hands toward the warmth. What the Ashen One saw next left him fascinated, unable to tear his eyes away or move.

As her hands met the fire, the First Flame lodged itself between her palms, leaving the bonfire to its embers. The Firekeeper herself seemed rather enraptured by the flames she held.

After a few seconds, the warrior noticed the Darkness gaining all around the both of them, as the realm of Lothric was devoured by the unnatural night falling upon them. The Darksun itself seemed to fade as the Primordial Fire lost more and more of its intensity.

_So this is it, then_, he thought, resolute to see the End of Fire.

As if mirroring his thought process, the Firekeeper, still keeping her _(apparent,_ the Ashen One pointed to himself) gaze on the last lights, spoke for the world one last time, a gentle smile on her face :

"The First Flame quickly fades. Darkness will shortly settle."

Around the couple, the wind howled in answer.

The Ashen One, deciding that he would rather appreciate the last glimmers of the Flame from close, moved slightly to her right side, before sitting on his knees, beside her. Though her facing her charge was unchanged, her faint smile was disrupted for a second, before returning brighter, if only barely so.

"But one day", the masked blonde continued, with a soft tone inspiring hope, "tiny flames will dance across the darkness…"

The Undead turned his head from the Flame to look at her, bathed in the last lights. It was, of course, this faint vision of a flame reborn that led them to this moment, even moreso than his wish to see the Lords rest, but as she spoke with faith about her dream, the Ashen One found himself accepting it as solid fact.

_I would have loved seeing that_, he thought to himself, dragging his vision back to her hands.

As the last dim rays of light died in between her fingers, her clear voice resonated once more through the wastes of the Kiln :

"... Like embers, linked by Lords past."

Before all that could be seen was lost to the Darkness, the Ashen One, in one final bid for comfort, and defiance to all that seemed to end, took his left, gauntlet-clad hand, and put it on the Firekeeper's right forearm. He soon felt the light weight of her delicate palm, her own left, resting on his gauntlet.

As even the wind seemed to die with the coming Darkness, the Firekeeper lifted her head toward her final companion, and called for him :

"Ashen One, hearest thou my voice still?"

But by the time she was finished, the gauntlet she held onto was gone.

* * *

**You _might_ have noticed I changed the scenario a bit. There's one narrative reason, and another, personal this time.**

**The narrative reason is for the Ashen One and the Firekeeper to notice their companion's disappearance from one another by their proximity, which was entirely absent in the original End of Fire Ending. For a game that hammers down how these undeads and gods are all animated by very predominantly human behavior and fears, it seemed to me that the fact that they didn't get closer to each other as Oblivion descended is a strange cut in behavior, almost bizarre, considering it is THE most noble ending in intentions, in the least.**

**The second, personal reason, is that the Firekeeper is indeed absolute waifu material, whose entire life was tending over bonfires with her own lifeforce, and pretty much would've ended in a mass grave if you linked the Fire. She deserves _someone _gives her a bit more than a "well done" as she's about to disappear in the Dark.**

**On a final note, the Ashen One's class is Deprived, and he uses a roleplaying, miracle-based warrior build : Morne's and the Firstborn of Sunlight's rings, Havel's Ring, and Chloranthy's Ring. He picked up a full set of Farron's Undead Legion Armor (Bloodborne vibes intensifies), and uses an Irithyll Straigth Sword. Favors Lightning miracles. No shield. No Covenant. I'll leave the stats to your imagination, since for the rest it's essentially roleplay. **

**Needless to say, this being a LoL crossover, expects plenty of jolly cooperation from his part. He's just definitely not at his brightest moment here.**


	2. Chapter 1: Fire, walk with me

**Well, now's the time to implicate Valoran. You'll get the timetable if you remember Brand's old Lore.**

**Curtains up!**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Fire, walk with me**

To Brand, there was nothing like the smell of a charred hamlet. The carbonized aroma of wood burning into cinders, the fleeting scent of plaster turning to ash, the elating and ever intoxicating smell of scorched flesh growing in power; all of them and more left Brand feeling euphoric, complete.

But it was only a small part of the appeal the effects of fire had on him : he loved it all. Its blinding glow, its searing warmth, the taste of ash and embers, the sound of crackling wood and stone in an inferno; all of it represented the power, raw power, so addicting that it left Brand wanting more.

The village he now walked out of was now nothing more than a pyre dedicated to his self-made flames, a monument to power in itself, fleeting but oh so majestic.

The Burning Vengeance heard the voices of men in the distance, shouting far beyond the little valley the village had craddled itself into, carried over by the southern winds, ever toward the North.

The North had been, not so long ago, the home of his actual vessel. No longer. The North was cold, and his fire was still weak over there. But here, there was carbon aplenty, in people as in the rest of nature and civilization.

Naturally, he had been followed. Charred sites following a line could hardly been a tough prey to hunt, although the question concerning the catching of said prey had more to do with the "how" rather than the "where" or "when". Already he had clashed with mages, with laughable ease; in the past, rune mages were something to avoid, but those pathetic waterbags were not nearly as powerful as the ones of old. Basic magic, and none of the understanding behind the training. Those favoring fire, for example, visibly never enamored their own flame.

Instead, they had no choice but to appreciate the power gap, and this at the cost of their lives.

Brand laughed like a madman, and began sprinting toward the voices carried by the wind.

He was already feeling the need for human screaming from searing pain.

* * *

"The more we let him move, the more it approaches Demacia. We need to move, or else it'll be their levies that'll have to stop it. It'll be a slaughter."

Summoner Marcus listened stoically to his Demacian colleague, Kavas Kingfist, as he evaluated the situation himself. Having lost more than half of the mage squad to the incompetence of his zaunite seniors four hours ago at sundown, the mission seemed completely FUBAR at first sight. _Apprehend the instigator of these serial arsons, they said. It'll be _easy _with eighth Summoners, they said..._

"The Demacian are already deploying their… agents at contact points along our reported trajectory", tried to begin Marcus, hoping his junior would _at least_ understand that they weren't the only ones on that job. The ideal strategy would be to regroup with the Demacian recovery team and share intel before trying again. Runes knew the Crownguard could handle themselves, the brother like the sister. The both of them survived worse, and could be used against the burning man.

Kingfist turned around in his grovebush to face his senior. Not so long ago they enchanted their cloaks and hid in the half-barren hills North of the Royal Way on which the creature was treading, to camouflage themselves and avoid detection from the supernatural arsonist. _Ironic that the punitive rearline was the only thing to survive the initial confrontation,_ thought Marcus.

"When is that, leader?" asked Kavas, painfully aware that he'd get an answer he wouldn't like; it _really _was an unsubtly spiteful expression on his face.

Marcus looked beyond the inferno raging some miles away. He had no backup, less than 25% of the squad he left the Institute with, no field superior whatsoever to rely on, another civilian area less than 15 miles southwest from the monster, without proper defenses, and finally, as much as he wanted to retreat, even with news of the Crownguard being deployed, the town over there _(Roaia,_ if he remembered correctly) would be utterly razed by the time the siblings and their ilk arrived. An outcome utterly unacceptable by the Institute's standards, especially after so many lives had already been lost to that fire fetishist.

The senior summoner sighed. _I hope Katryn doesn't kill me for acting like_ _some Demacian hero_, he thought rapidly. _Or possibly being turned into roast._

"You're... You're right, Kingfist. We're gonna have to move to buy that town some time. I'll contact the Institute of War to see if there's anyone available nearby to give the evac order, and then we turn into bait for that thing."

Marcus paused, uncertain if he truly wanted to add that which he wanted to say.

"Hear me however, junior; if six Summoners, as cocky as they were, couldn't stop it, I highly doubt us two'll last two or three hours, tops."

Kavas opened his mouth, as if to contest the odds, but shut it immediately, before replying with a faint smile :

"Bah, this _was_ supposed to be a punitive task for the both of us, after all."

Marcus nodded sternly and sighed again. _Insubordination wasn't worth nearly enough_.

* * *

Brand heard the two assailants from a long way. They were hasty in their advance, and unsubtle in their attempt to steer him toward them. After all, why wouldn't they be? If they were the same type of protectors as the previous mage team, it was their duty to protect the cacophony emanating from that unburnt town.

_Heroes end in Fire,_ he thought while smiling wickedly, revelling in the chance to immolate flesh again.

* * *

To Marcus, the surroundings of the creature reminded him of the Crematoriums, in Noxus. The very air around those structures, made for the underclasses of his city-state, roared with searing heat day and night, so that the poors were at the very least unburdened of death, if anything else. One of the rare case of Noxus' High Command _ever_ feeling sympathetic to the plights of the weak.

The Crematoriums, however, did not try to flush him out of the woods by burning everything in it, were not fully mobile, and certainly did _not_ chuckle maniacally with each one of their actions.

As the height of a pine tree exploded above him, Marcus shouted a curse, both out of genuine fright, and a need to signal he wasn't quite dead to his companion.

"Can't find a damn opening!" shouted back Kingfist from behind the next tree, as he used water magic to dampen his robes for the seventh time in less than twenty minutes. The fire's roar made even that barely audible.

The entire landscape wouldn't have been out of place in hell, for all Marcus knew of it. Splinters of glassed pines erupted from the ground like so many cruel spears. The ground burned sporadically, grass spontaneously combusting due to the high temperature. The sky burned red under the clouds of ashes, and visibility was minimal with the cinders flying around.

The Royal Road effectively had become a river of magma, at temperatures so hot Marcus had difficulty to even keep his eyes on it. From it, the creature roared triumphantly, before sending a fireball that came to break upon the remains of the tree he hid behind.

_This is bad_, thought the senior summoner. _Scratch holding hours, we can't even hold three quarters of one._

"Oh, **moth… INCOMING!**" screamed Kavas. The higher voice register certainly got Marcus' attention toward the burning projectile coming from the road they were turning their backs to.

The projectile hit a tree trunks several tens of feet away, before unnaturally bouncing from it and heading straigth for him.

"DEAR RUNES!" Marcus erupted before rolling away in a depression to his right. The tree he just took cover behind was blasted to cinders at low height, making it crumble down altogether. He fell face first into scorched grass, and the smell of fiery death filled his mind with fear.

"Ha ha HA, YES! **YES! ASH** **TO ASH!"** laughed away the burning man while summoning an eruption of fire near Marcus' colleague. The latter barely could avoid melting to death by running toward the same sink his colleague jumped in prior.

"FIND YOUR OWN COVER, DAMN YOU!" Marcus shouted to his panting and panicking companion while throwing a shielding spell forward, absorbing a fireball thrown their way.

They were running out of options.

"Kavas, cover me!" he ordered his underling. The other nodded vigorously, flashed shortly to a strong oak some feet away from the roadside, and ignited the arsonist.

Screaming in pain, it returned fire, away from Marcus, if only for a moment.

Marcus concentrated on the communication spell to contact the Institute.

_Summoner Marcus, your report,_ a disembodied female voice in his head ordered swiftly upon contact.

_Entire operation is FUBAR, Councilor. That living furnace is still giggling like a Demacian talking about self-virtue, but we're on our last leg here. Requesting immediate authorization to use runic magic, madame Councilor._

There was a substantial pause, then the answer came, uncertain :

_Runic magic is imprevisible and, in most case, irreversibly destructive, _Summoner_. We do not need to rep…_

_With all due respect, _Councilor_, so is that psychopath._

Another pause. There was an audible sigh.

_You have my authorization, squad leader. Stop anything that threatens **our** peace._

_Is the town evacuation coming around?_

_Organized and moving further Southward, squad leader. Give thanks to Summoner Karl if you ever meet him. You're clear for engagement._

There was a pause.

_Good luck, and Runes keep you, Summoner. _The spell was broken.

Marcus lifted his head carefully above his cover to observe the situation.

The Fireman had just flushed out Kavas, who was (much to Marcus' utter dismay) running back to his squad leader's depression.

"Did what I could, Marcus" was his only answer as he jumped in, in a panic.

The senior gulped. Even with cleansing spells being used whenever he could, his throat and lungs were absolutely _parched_. He wondered for a second how he could even fully order Kingfist around.

"Tac retreat, summoner", he settled for. "Rune magic authorized. I'll use spell vamp runes to sap it."

Kavas' eyes widened, then he nodded with a cough.

The Junior jumped out of the hole and sprinted to their original lookout position in the northern hillsides, fireballs trailing him close or crashing against his shield spell, leaving Marcus to channel magical power into his spell vampirism runetable, alone.

The Fire around him receded. Footsteps approached from Marcus' left flank.

_A showdown, uh?_

"Mage! Your companion has fled, and you're outmatched! Come, face me; your pain will be neutered by the heat, before you burn away."

Marcus stayed silent. The footsteps grew slower as they approached his natural foxhole, until they came to an halt.

"Time's up, mage."

Above his cavity now stood the entity, for the first time appearing without a cloak of fire. It seemed as though its skin was made of molten magma cooled over only slightly. His eyes flickered like flames, with no pupils in sight. His bestial smile revealed gums of coal and teeths like embers.

"You're right", the summoner answered back defiantly, in a tone harsher than anything he thought he could possibly emit. "My time isn't worth _you."_

The Fireman noticed the etched plank in his hands, let out a terrifyingly hollow-sounding "RUNE MAGE" in anger, and prepared to fireblast him, only for the runes to activate beforehand.

There was an intense white-orange flash that blinded Marcus.

His runetable cracked and snapped as the air around the two collapsed in a way no one could have predicted.

* * *

**Now for the author's notes.**

**Rune magic... was volatile in the old League Lore. It led to the Rune Wars, which were essentially Earth-shattering Pre-Industrial World Wars. One of the most interesting point of the LoL narrative concerning the Rune Wars to an author is the fact that magic was so unstable by its end with the runes interacting with each other that biology, geology and even _Time_ at one point did things that couldn't be repeated again. **

**Interactions between runes (like Marcus' runetable and Brand himself, who's essentially still bearing his powerful runic seal) could lead to... a weird reality break, for instance. You get what I'm saying, and where I'm going with this.**

**I'm rather glad at how the stalemate turned out. You get that Brand is just playing with them. And we get to see why Summoner Spells could have made the Institute the dominant power in Valoran. Imagine an army of flash-stepping, fast-healing juggernauts who create inextinguishible fire, can't be choked, poisoned or infected unless it's really heavy stuff, and can communicate psychically with each others if they concentrate enough. Now_ that's _scary. But only if they don't treat it like a game.**

**Finally, on Brand's personality.**

**He's a psychopath. Even his lore state that he just burns thing because it feels good to him. He might justify it by saying he's a force of rebirth, but that still doesn't excuse omnicide as far as morality go. **

**It's also a foregone conclusion that the two Summoners won't catch Brand, since he's pretty much the Crownguard's punching bag in his Judgement, and I don't want to steer away from that piece of Lore too much.**

**That's all folks, stay tuned for more! Ashen One is here next chapter!**


	3. Chapter 2 : Ash, From Fire Born

**Europa Universalis is a good game and all, but I should have at least updated that yesterday instead of binging the former for six hours straigth with Extended Timeline.**

**Curtains up!**

* * *

Kavas had left vision wards during his escape to the lookout, and he knew roughly what had happened with Marcus. His runetable had shattered in an explosion of fire and ash, probably reacting somehow with the runic entity's own magic.

"By the Veil", Kingfist let out in utter despair after seeing his senior's state.

Marcus had taken the worst of it. He'd looked, after the smoke dispersed, like a ghoul, his skin virtually gone with the runetable while the rest of his flesh was roasted to anthracite. Due to some miracle _(or, more likely, some curse,_ he thought), he seemed to yet live, but it would not have seemed for long, since the creature, unscathed by his elements, marched toward the Summoner with satisfaction in his face.

Kavas grit his teeth almost to the breaking point. There was nothing he could do at this point but sound the retreat (except if one desired to be burned alive, and leave his comrade to die), something he'd grown quite reluctant against. His senior might have been Noxian, but he was his first field commander that actually fought for something higher than himself, and _no one_ deserved to be cooked alive. He forced himself to watch through his wards what he believed would be Marcus expiring.

Some feet away from the crawling corpse, the ash cloud summoned by the explosion began to whirl onto itself in the shape of a sphere. The winds it created were strong enough to distract the Fire Man and drown Marcus' howlings.

For a moment, the cloud stood still.

And then, there was fire. A blinding flame burned into the center of the cloud, dancing with its accelerating inner whirls.

And just like it came, the fire went, leaving only falling ash. As it cleared, a shade appeared gradually in the center. Humanoid, sitting on his knees, wearing some strange, intimidating armor, the newcomer did not flinch, or make one hint of a movement.

For a moment, the Summoner was confused, until he decided that rune-born warriors birthed in an ash storm might be a threat too.

Kavas concentrated on his communication spell, and before his squad's supervisor could even confirm her presence, he declared :

_Councilor, before even the formalities... Marcus is almost dead, his runetable reacted to the target, and now I've got a... "Guest" situation here._

A threatening silence was held from the Institute's side. Kingfist verified his connection again, and found it normal. He began to sweat coldly.

The Institute did not like "guests", but they hated those who "brought them over" even more. Kavas cringed as the ominous silence persisted.

_Let's hope it's a polite "guest"._

* * *

There was light again. Blinding light that forced him to wince, as to its contrast with the Dark.

The Ashen One, at first, could not believe it. The Flame was gone, after all ; how could there be disparity? Yet here it was. The smell of ash and cinders was the same as it once was, but there was warmth anew.

The Unkindled tried again to lift his eyelids.

There were flames, tiny fires, dancing on the ground. Just like she said there'd be.

He got up, unsteadily. He knew not how long he had waited in the Dark, but it seemed it left him weakened. _No matter, _he thought, _no matter right now_.

He walked toward the closest of those flames, kneeled before it, then picked it up with its embers. The fire danced, young and strong. So unlike the First Flame, when held by the Firekeeper, kneeling in ash.

He paused, and remembered her light hand on his gauntlet, which he did not feel upon regaining his senses. A quickly settled terror grabbed his dead heart as he turned around.

She was not there.

The Ashen One felt an immense void in his guts, as he realized, searching her by sight, that not only was she gone, but he wasn't in the Kiln anymore. He recognized the feeling.

It was despair that gripped him.

* * *

After having observed the area around him in a panic, the Ashen One noticed something that distracted him so greatly he put the Firekeeper's fate aside; beyond the blackened wood protruding from the ground. It was unfamiliar. Uncanny, even.

There was a burning man there. Turning his back to him.

The Ashen One met many fiery creatures during his voyage throughout Lothric and the World's Edge. Many one of them manipulated either the Flames of Chaos, born of Izalith, like the Demons, and the True Fire of the First Flame, like the Lords he battled.

But never had he met a being _made_ of fire. The whole notion made him think that he was in the presence of some lost First Lord, which made him extremely wary.

Step by step, he carefully approached the being. He turned his head to meet the Champion of Ash's sight. His eyes burned the same as his hands and cranium. He turned around to better face the Ashen One.

Then he visibly _sniffed,_ and took a puzzled look, before speaking words the Unkindled could not understand :

"_Uh. You're already completely burned._"

The Ashen One noted the curiosity of the flaming man, before noticing something moving where the latter once faced, behind him.

Someone was crawling very slowly on the ground, as if trying to escape. His body was in bad condition, with burns having taken away most of his flesh. He let out a ghastly, low-register howl.

_What, still here?_

The Ashen One drew his sword and took his stance in surprise. Before him now stood Gael, with his red cowl and beard, but it wasn't Gael; without his broken sword and hunch, and with the Dark Sign branding his very body with the Dark Soul of Man, Gael was long gone. The Hollow before him, Devourer of the Pygmees, destroyed the slaveknight, a destruction the old man had willingly embraced prior, for "his Lady's painting".

Gael chuckled at his opponent's actions. In his hands some dark fluids whispered a damning song, answering the crackling of his own sword. He spoke in tongues the Unkindled did not understand; some Abyss-speak, maybe :

"_The inside is still undercooked in that one, Burned One. Out of my way._"

The Ashen One readied his Sunlight Talisman in his off-hand, ready to cast his necessities.

Gael roared and began the battle with his Soul Explosion, launching the darkfire entities around himself. The Ashen One quickly rolled backward, fast enough to see Gael loading his crossbow.

The Unkindled leaped behind a smoldering tree trunk to evade the bolts. He quickly glanced above to see Gael leap onto his cover, and with an sky-shattering roar Gael launched the dark energy of his palm at him.

Once more, the Champion rolled, this time to his right side, thrusting and retracting his charged blade into the Hollow's side, below the ribcage. It grunted in pain, before throwing his assailant away.

Gael took a hand to his side. He seemed enraged at the sight of the Blood, and roared again toward the Ashen One.

Something was wrong.

The Unkindled remembered Gael. Gael _marveled _at the Dark Soul's blood last time they met. His sword was also gone, and his erratic movement were not the ones he used after his first serious injury.

But more than anything else, the slaveknight _died_, Hollow or not, at the Pygmees' feet. He made sure of that himself. The Ashen one remembered ramming him through with his Irythill Sword.

The Ashen One's mind screamed at him that it was both at the same time. _Why? How?_

Gael overlooked him from over his shoulder, finally tearing away from his injuries to focus on his foe. The Ashen One saw his cowl and beard caught fire in a hellish draft, his figure clouded in flames erupting from his very being, until Gael was no more, and the man of fire was once more in front of the Champion of Ash, his hands readying deadly flames burning with destructive resolve.

The Ashen One retreated with a roll, avoiding the pillar of flame that formed where he was previously fallen, using a rock as a support to stand upright. He took his Estus Flask and took one gulp of the golden liquid. His mind calmed itself, making the difference between reality and memories at last. He took his stance once more.

The Burning Man clutched his side, his legs almost giving in as he held onto a petrified branch of pine to his left, much to the Ashen One's surprise. Rare were the enemy usually staggered by one thrust, much less the first one.

This would be rather enjoyable, compared to his fight with Friede and the Incarnation of Cinders.

* * *

Brand could not land a hit.

The Husk was very, very nimble, and his... Peculiar properties made him by default the Burning Vengeance's worst match-up.

"Die", he ordered the creature exasperately and repeatedly as he launched away masses after masses of fire spells, only for them to be dodged expertly. "Die already! Why won't you die?"

And it came again. The moment he stopped to evaluate his enemy's situation, he was already overwhelmed. This time, the Ash Warrior took his left eye in a slash. As a runic creature, it was merely a temporary setback, but still Brand screamed as cold magic coursed through him and agony was numbing his senses. He released his fire, most of what was available, forward, but the creature leapt to the Burning Vengeance's left side.

_You think a blind spot will save you? _he thought, enraged at this pile of moving ash standing in his way.

The Husk lunged toward his enemy, but he found Brand ready for him : he created a pillar of fire on his own position and jumped to his right side.

The Ash Warrior took a direct hit.

* * *

The Ashen One felt the burns gaining upon his body.

This Fire was different of that which he met in the past. An Unkindled, per its status as effectively less than ash, had strong resistance to fire; not unlimited, but it certainly prevented flames from usually spreading on his form.

_Usually._

But these flames were _hungry. _They gnawed at his already burned corpse, refusing to let go even as his armor turned red from heat and his flesh turned to cinders.

_Must be some form of magic, _he thought. He then cursed himself for forsaking preparations with an unknown opponent.

The Ashen One wondered if this is what the Lords endured by sacrificing themselves to the Primordial Fire. He wondered if that was the same sensation he felt when _he _was fed to the Kiln, leading to his Unkindling, so long ago.

And suddenly, the flames stopped, as if wished away. Footsteps could be heard, slowly walking away in the cinders toward the South.

The Ashen One, confused, got up slowly, his flesh cracking and tearing apart as his legs struggled to hold his armor's weight. The footsteps had stopped. The Undead lifted his head to gauge his opponent once more.

The Burning Man seemed absolutely horrified to see him standing up once more.

* * *

Kingfist's mouth was left ajar at what he witnessed. He began concentrating on the Institute's link again.

_Councilor._

_Summoner,_ a very cold impersonal voice in his head answered back. He clearly, and without the earlier hesitation, stated his needs :

_You will get me back-up for the "guest" we've communicated about. Now._

* * *

The Ashen One slowly circled around his foe, his movements unnaturally tense due to his burns. The Fire Man looked completely overwhelmed at his mere presence. He did not even try to send fire his way like earlier.

The Unkindled used the cover of a burned down pine just inside his trajectory, in-between him and the enemy, to gulp one more dose of Estus.

_Now that's better_, he thought, as his movements once more turned fluid. He could still, however, feel that his skin was still charred almost to black, and the unease lurking in the back of his evermore darkened heart.

As he emerged from behind the glassed trunk, he saw the determined expression on the visage of the Fiery Being. The Ashen One immobilized himself, and took his battle stance.

Fire gathered in front of the creature's torso, weakening its surrounding aura and the flames covering its body. Sensing danger, the Unkindled lightened his stance to prepare a hasty dodge.

The creature without its fiery exterior reminded him of the dormant old Demon King, somewhat, althought without as many rough edges upon his form. His amassed fire formed a very dense orb glowing blue in its center with intensity, something the Ashen One took as a very bad sign.

Then, the orb simply went off, like a crossbow bolt, toward him. Barely able to register the attack, the Warrior sidestepped, and got grazed in the right shoulder. Atrocious pain followed, numbing his senses almost as to blind him to the projectile bouncing back on a scorched stone cavity to the North straigth back to him.

The Ashen One readied his Talisman in his left hand, and cast off Great Magic Barrier as he took a direct hit in the right flank. First came the warmth, then came tetanizing agony as the flames leeched his entire body. He scratched his earlier thoughts and held now that _this _was as close to Linking the Fire one could get.

Fortunately, it seemed his magic absorbtion held still. Already the flames were dimming in intensity and the pain subsided on the rest of his body, unlike his right shoulder, still withering with unnatural magics.

Struggling to lift his head from his cowered prone, he noticed, as he looked around, that the Burning Man was nowhere to be seen.

_He escaped._

This simple evidence unleashed both relief and concern in the Ashen One's heart : the former because he survived that last attack without punishing consequences, and the latter because such a powerful foe had escaped, and the Unkindled doubted his intentions would be pure.

A cough coming from several feet away brought the Ashen One back to reality. He used his only good arm left to cast Bountiful Sunlight, hoping the poor man was inside the vicinity of the miracle.

Turning around to be on his back instead of his painfully sensible right side, the Ashen One wondered where the closest bonfire was. He would ask the burned one for information on that once he would have recovered : it was the least he could have done after driving back that monster.

Freed from the rigid stress of battle, his thoughts drifted again to the Firekeeper, the knot in his stomach intensifying once more as he imagined her alone in the Dark. He banished this fear at once, leaving himself tired and depressed.

_I sure could use a rest right now._

* * *

**Well, this was long to edit.**

**Originally that chapter was done Sunday Evening, but I was largely unsatisfied by what I wrote : the action was precipitated, the first section was _somehow_ written at the end, the Ashen One turned Ashen Sue, Kavas turned into a Shonen Series Fight Commentator, and Marcus would have been probably dead by the next chapter, something I saw as a waste of perfectly good character and plotlines. **

**Naturally, this was rewritten from scratch. The only thing that survived the culling without major retouching was the second section.**

**And _yes_, Brand grabbed the stupid ball in the middle of the fight and didn't follow up on his Pillar of Flame, and for two very good reason :**

**One, this'd be the first time Brand fights something that isn't a rune mage and does _not_ get away with it according to the chronology of his own lore. I imagine it's giving him quite the swelled ego.**

**The second one is that he didn't know the Ashen One was undead, and as such didn't bother to turn Ash into even more ash. Why would he? As far as he knew, falling to the ground to roll and exhaust his flames were natural reaction to what he perceived was people _dying_, not people _trying not to die,_ which I believe is a major difference of situational interpretation in someone as psychologically stunted as Brand.**

**Lastly, about the whole Fake;Gael part.**

**There's this wonderful phenomena, settling in gradually, that happens in Lothric when undeads and unkindled alike lose their purpose and hope in unlife...**

**And I'm not going further. That's all folks! Next chapter coming soon!**


	4. Chapter 3 : A Flame in the Dark

**Fourth entry. Dialogue heavy. Confused Ashen One. Curtains Up!**

* * *

Just seconds ago, Marcus was ready to make his peace and meet up with the Veiled Lady. It all felt unreal to him that, suddenly, he was now breathing, seeing, touching... _recovering_.

At first he thought that was how dying felt, but then quickly realized that he still didn't move an inch from the spot he fell to, when his own runic armaments failed him.

The Summoner tried to get up, but could not, and the best he could do was forcefully move his head. He struggled to stay conscious as he tried to make out what happened to him.

His skin was in agony, as Marcus saw that while the spell cast by the newcomer mitigated the effects of the burns on his body's working, it did not save what was not necessary to live without. His arms and legs' outward derms, as far as he could tell, condensed with the ambient ash into coal, taking on an exotic flaky structure. He tried moving his left forearm, only for a sheet of mineral in the elbow to crack and intense pain to be registered.

"Son of a..." he began quietly, only to stop once he realized, in suffering, that his lips were affected by the burns, although much less so. He was surprised at how raspy his voice had become, and after using cleanse and heal in succession, he was comforted by the fact that his lips could now at least move without cracking apart.

He turned his head around to observe his surroundings, and finally got a look at his savior. A few feet away from him was the newcomer, lying in cinders, his armor covered in ash, and glowing in certain areas like a fiery ember. He wasn't moving in the slightest, causing slight unease to Marcus.

"Hey... Hey, are you... alright?..." the summoner asked, a coughing fit breaking the last words of his question apart. There was no answer in return.

_Ah, I'm... We're going to need specialized help in my state_, he thought, readying his communication spell, before stopping in motion as he saw the stranger struggle upward.

* * *

There it was again, that damnable speech. He did not get an ounce of information from the clearly concerning question the burned man asked.

He remembered that in Lothric, he understood, more or less, everyone. Even if, the Unkindled theorized, it had been at least centuries since he had been fed to the Kiln and buried, he could still convey rather eloquently and be understood in return, and that in reverse. There were exceptions in Ludleth and the Firekeeper, but it mostly stemmed from their own age, not his; even then, the pattern of sentences and wording were the same, the intention revealed the rest.

Here, there was no known pattern to rely unto, and intention can only get one so far. It was completely foreign.

_Where am I?_ the Ashen One asked himself, for the first time since he regained his senses. It was a legitimate question, now that the ash had settled. Perhaps he was in some distant, untouched land, like the Ringed City once was under Filianore's spell?

All these conjectures left him ultimately with no more answers than he already had, and so he decided to tend to the burned man. He began getting up, with great efforts, as his right side was still bathed in a numbness that made movement tedious.

_Clearly it would have been better of if I'd have died; the same would apply to that man, given the poor state I found him in_, he thought, mildly irritated. Maybe the bonfire the victim rested at was too far away to reliably die? He knew how tedious it was to spend a good amount of time threading a path you've already traveled on, _repeatedly_, after all. It could eventually drive one to Hollow, if frustrated enough. He saw it happen once.

At least, he thought he did. Maybe it was something else that drove that poor man to decay.

He shook his head as he started limping toward the subject of his attention. His right leg could barely hold unto his weight, and the ash and cinders on the ground did not help. He chuckled dryly as he remembered when he fought Gael once in Filianore's Rest, before he went Hollow, only to stumble in an ash dune and get impaled when he lunged at him.

That was one lesson about sure footing that he did not forget.

As he returned back to the present, he realized he was suddenly at the burned man's feet. Bountiful Sunlight certainly seemed to have had an effect: while visibly he was still as charred as the trees surrounding them for the most part, his face had recovered enough to at least _look_ human, and he didn't seem in as much pain when immobilized as he once was.

The Ashen One kneeled at his side, and prodded his skin around the heart. He saw the man wince a bit as the mineral covering cracked lightly, and the Unkindled stared in return while quickly removing his hands. Maybe the back was a bit less sensitive? He moved to slightly hold the burning man up, who began to breath loudly as the Ashen One turned him around.

There it was again. That feeling that something was inherently wrong with what he was seeing.

The Ashen One looked around himself, through the ash and smoke and burned wood, and, seeing nothing threatening hiding, looked back at the burned man. He examined, without touching, the man's back, neck and shoulders, and turned him around again, which elicited a high-pitched groan and some unknown curses toward him. He examined his chest, his legs, his arms and face.

It was impossible. Clearly he was once again hallucinating, just as he had earlier, with Gael surimposed on that fiery abomination.

Because that man was, as far as he could tell, human.

And he was unbranded with the Seal of Fire.

* * *

The stranger, after turning and returning Marcus around, had gotten up all of a sudden. He looked rather panicked, grasping at his own neck and head below his voluminous hat.

"Hey now..." Marcus said, trying to sound as supporting as he could, given that he was so roughly handled earlier, "It's okay if you don't know... how to heal me... you know. I've... got resources of my own."

His savior stopped grasping his head and spoke; it was a broken and terribly frightened voice, as if unused for a long time, and while inscrutable, the language was melodious even to his tongue.

"_Where is it?_"

Marcus noticed the problem of communication the both of them had (something concerning, considering that a Summoner had to be fluent in Noxian, Demacian, Ionian and Freljord speech as to communicate with the Champions), and devised a temporary countermeasure. He tugged, with great pain upon his right hand, lightly on his companion's left leather boot, and as the stranger looked at him, he struggled to use his left hand to signal him to kneel again. The warrior seemed to process the handsign for a moment, then brought himself down to face him, seemingly confused. The Summoner slowly brought his left index upon the nasal bridge of the being, just below the ridge of his elongated helm; the stranger jolted backward for a moment, but Marcus' welcoming expression seemed to convince him to bring himself back in place and proceed further.

Marcus was unpleasantly surprised by the texture of his skin: it reminded him of volcanic turf, as if he was some sort of compressed ash-being. The irony of that description was lost to him.

Just as slowly as he had put his hands on his savior's face, he pulled it back unto his chest. The stranger seemed at the height of his confusion, and, while amused by it, Marcus felt he ought to bring his actions into a sane perspective as to enlighten the man who helped him.

"Um... The translation spell should be working now."

* * *

The Ashen One was stunned. A spell was cast on him and he barely noticed. He had made what could have been a catastrophic mistake. Clearly he ought to thank the Flame it was revealed to him through this harmless magic. There were powers unknown here, in this place.

Wherever _here_ was.

"Where am I?" the Undead asked out loud to the burned mage, without even realizing so.

His counter-question was unexpected, and the serious tone he took while uttering it was frightening.

"On what scale... are we talking about now?... Geopolitical? Wordly?... Spatial?... Dimensional?" the mage asked, wheezing throughout the whole ordeal.

The Undead pondered for a moment, lost as to what some of these terms implicated (_What, pray tell, is 'dimensional'?_) , and then answered back, uncertain.

"What... kingdom is this? Where is it compared to Lothric?"

The answer came back fast.

"This is the southern reaches... of Freljord... This part of the country... has an alliance with Demacia... There's a bit of a power struggle... occurring... at the moment for... the crown..."

That response left him more confused than he was previously. He had never heard those names before, and it seemed he was in contested territory in a civil war. The mage continued again, in a fit of coughs.

"...And as for Lothric, ... it isn't from _here_... At least, the known world... I know my history, and... geography and,... just like you probably don't know this place... judging from your mannerism,... I don't know your Lothric either."

The Ashen One stood silent. His companion blinked a few times, unmoving as to lessen the strain on his fragile skin. The Lord-slayer took his left palm to his eyes, under his helm, and said softly and weakly, his voice tinged with sorrow:

"I'm lost."

* * *

A few moments passed before the Ashen One took a hold of himself once more. It was unbecoming to show weakness in front of a man willing to give him the information he wanted.

_Thinking of 'man'..._

The Champion of Ash let his forearm fall to his side and lunged, still kneeling, in front of the downed mage's visage.

"You're... human."

The burned man looked confused.

"...Yes?"

"So where is your Mark?"

"What 'Mark'?"

"The Dark Sigil. The Mark of Undeath."

The mage laughed in cough.

"Oh no, I'm not Undead... Runes, no."

"That is impossible. The Curse consumed all in the end."

The Unkindled looked intently at the man in front of him.

"I don't know about any curse... I'm mortal."

The Ashen one turned his head to his side, his left hand to his chin. Humanity unshackled by the Undead Curse... As if Gwyn's defiance to fate had never happened. This was too good to be true.

Maybe he was in the far future, after the Dark? He remembered fairly well that time was convoluted in Lothric, with the Untended Graves being his main example.

_No, there was nothing left from which Humanity could have sprawled forth anew. This place is elsewhere than Lothric_.

He turned his head back toward the mage.

"What about the Gods? Gwyn? Gwyndolin? Gwynevere?"

"Those are some... unoriginal thematic names, ... but aside from that,... I don't know anyone... with those names."

"Do you know what a bonfire is?" he almost pleaded.

"Aren't those big piles of wood... they light up for festivals?"

_Uh._

"No. The resting grounds for Undeads."

"Nothing like that on Valoran... Maybe in the Shadow Isles, ... there would be some similar devices..."

No bonfires. How was he supposed to revive correctly without a abyss-damned bonfire? If his body wasn't already badly hurt by that firebolt from earlier, he would tear apart his eyes and hair.

The man spoke first this time:

"You're an Undead, uh?... Usually, your kind... isn't really that helpful to the living... You have a name?"

The Ashen One looked at him, completely stoic.

"We are not even worthy of being ash for the Fire. We have no name."

"Then you must have a title... Didn't you mention that curse... consumed more than you?... Surely people must have called you... _somethin__g_."

The Unkindled lifted his head, the mage's words transporting him go back to the past. He has had many titles bestowed upon him by friend and foes alike: Unkindled One, Champion of Ash, friend, pretender... once, Ludleth called him Lord-Slayer; a surname he always thought was too much, especially since he never took down a Lord in their prime. But the most used, the most personal was always the same.

"We are an Ashen One. It is all we are", he said, his own title now seeming heavier with the weight of the memories shackled upon it.

* * *

**The Ashen One finally realized the gravity of his situation. The gist of it, at least; I plan on having the Institute of War formally exposing Runeterra to him through a bonus, recap chapter I plan on adding in maybe five entries or so. Still haven't planned that far ahead.**

**I'm thinking of building up the Ashen One to be incredibly bitter toward the inhabitants of Runeterra due to their favorable situation (after he'll learn of it, of course) compared to the shitstack that was Lordran/Lothric's ever worsening fate. It seemed like a good match for a character now driven out of his own accepted finality and taking it out on others.**

**And that's all for now. Please, do wait for more.**


End file.
